


Incorrigible and Nocturnal

by houseofthestars



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Fire Emblem: Three Houses Golden Deer Route, First Kiss, Nonbinary Linhardt von Hevring, Other, Pre-Timeskip | Academy Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Slow Build, a lot of made up lore about crests
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:21:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24986731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/houseofthestars/pseuds/houseofthestars
Summary: “You’re... researching crests?”“There’s just some stuff I’ve been wondering about, I guess,” Claude says, shrugging. “Especially what with all this stuff with Teach—”“You’re researching crests,”Linhardt says again, just to make sure.“I wouldn’t say ‘researching’.” Claude’s grip on his note-filled papers tightens slightly as he speaks. “Like I said, I’m just wondering. Call it satisfying a curiosity.”—A series of late night library break-ins, a series of notes, and a choice Linhardt has to make.
Relationships: Linhardt von Hevring/Claude von Riegan
Comments: 28
Kudos: 119





	1. Chapter 1

_ Garland Moon _

Libraries have a smell like the ghost of the forest they used to be. Tall wooden shelves, branches and trunks tamed and organised into utility. Books with time seeped into their paper spines, so that when you crack them the vanilla scent of decay puffs out from the pages like spores from a fungus. The library in the Hevring estate smells like this, too, along with the faint film of disapproval that seems to follow Linhardt around that house no matter what he happens to be doing, or not doing, or just looks like he might be doing. Luckily Linhardt has found that when disapproval follows you around for that long, much like most other scents, it becomes easy to ignore.

Here at Garreg Mach, the library opening hours run to a loose schedule of “whenever Tomas opens and closes it,” as far as Linhardt can tell. The door tends to be wide open between the hours of six in the morning and midnight. In the smaller hours, should a student have a test they need to cram for - or theoretically, an urgent three-in-the-morning desire to read about the teachings of Saint Cethleann - they may find themselves out of luck, unless they are willing to use more creative methods of entry.

That said, if the monastery faculty really wanted students not to access the library outside of its usual schedule they really should put a little more effort into keeping the door shut. Even someone like Linhardt - hardly gifted in strength, and who largely skipped the thief class introductory sessions because he’d spent the night before trying to piece together the most accurate lineage for the Crest of Cichol from five different books - can force the bolt to turn with only a little external intervention.

Which makes it both surprising and not surprising to find the door already ajar, tonight. If it is easy for someone as disinclined to effort as Linhardt to make his way inside, it should prove no trouble to anyone else. To  _ whoever _ , Linhardt starts to think somewhat indignantly, has chosen to intrude upon Linhardt’s nocturnal domain. Linhardt’s space. Linhardt’s opportunity to pace the bookshelves with a lantern in hand, pull at the spine of anything that digs a hook into his brain and pulls him down a rabbit hole further and further until he hears the bell toll for morning classes and realises he’s missed breakfast.

Sleep is a small sacrifice, of course, for the tranquility, the access to knowledge. For the desks that are far larger than his room’s paltry offering - Linhardt can hardly get more than two stacks going on that flimsy wood before documents start wobbling. And most of all, for the lack of Edelgard or Hubert breathing down his neck, urging him to do something more useful.

His blood runs cold at the thought. Hubert is a natural born lurker, and what better place to stalk his recalcitrant prey than between dark bookshelves in the dead of night? To pounce from the top of the Natural History section, where he’d been perched somewhere between snake and spider, and start droning on about wasted potential and service to the Empire or whatever? Maybe Linhardt has been too complacent. If so, he will have to begin mapping out some of the deeper tunnels below Garreg Mach. The ones laden with cobwebs and licked with the faintest metallic film of ingrained magic, a gentle warning Linhardt is prepared to ignore. The princess and her vassal might be tenacious but they underestimate the amount of experience Linhardt has at avoiding doing anything that might be expected of him.

He pushes the door fully open anyway, lantern held out in one hand, and rows of empty desks lull him into temporary relief until he catches the faint flicker of candlelight from between two shelves in the Ancient Fódlan History section, situated halfway between himself and the Theology shelves.

Fine. If it does end up being an Imperial ambush, so be it. They can carry him back to bed if they’re so insistent, and save him the legwork. He drops his papers and quill on the nearest desk and then picks his way across to the source.

Sitting cross-legged on the floor, chin in one hand, is the Golden Deer house leader. Linhardt has seen him before, of course - usually with the girl with the pink pigtails, or at the wyvern eyrie. He seems fine. There’s never been any particular reason for Linhardt to speak to him until now, when he’s blocking Linhardt’s direct pathway. He’s still in his day uniform, though rumpled and with a dusting of dried mud at the knees, a pile of books and paper surrounding him like an improvised bulwark. A candle is stuck to a plate by its own wax alight near his knee, and he’s already turned Linhardt’s way as Linhardt approaches, clearly tracking the sound of his footsteps.

“Oh, hey,” he says, when they make eye contact. He doesn’t make to stand, though he does casually flip the first sheet of his scribbled notes upside down. “It’s Linhardt, yeah? Sorry, bad with names.”

Linhardt absolutely does not know this person’s name and isn’t sure he ever has over the course of the last two months. It’s not personal. He doesn’t know most students’ names. The effort of learning didn’t seem necessary. “Mmm,” he says. “You know, the desks still work outside of normal library hours.”

The other student laughs a little, then shrugs. “Whaaat? You’re kidding. Here’s me on the floor for nothing. But, y’know, the desks are all the way over there, and the books are here, and I kinda don’t really know what I’m looking for? So I’d be getting up, and sitting down, and getting up and sitting down. And so on and so forth. At least here I’m right next to them.”

Linhardt hums vaguely. He can appreciate the sentiment, even if it could have been described in far fewer words. “I suppose I don’t care where you’re sitting, really. So long as you let me through.” He gestures towards the Theology section, and the other student turns his head to follow where Linhardt is pointing.

“What’s got you studying the Church at two of the clock?” the student says, curiously. “Doesn’t seem like the kind of subject you need to sneak around to find out about. What with us being in a big church and all.”

Linhardt doesn’t have to tell him what he’s studying. Probably shouldn’t, in fact. But it's the same hook that pulls him down these rabbit holes in the first place that drags all the words out of him, every time, whenever anyone asks, even when he can see the disinterest and irritation start to glaze over someone’s expression just a few sentences in. “I’m conducting research on the life and teachings of Saint Cethleann, in the interests of tracing her heritage and descendants. I’m looking for patterns in temperament, interests, even physical features, though it tends to be difficult when most descriptions of her are rather… exaggerated out of a sense of piety, if you understand my meaning. It’s interesting to compare descriptions across texts and deduce the similarities, though, and the motive behind that. Sometime it’s just continuing accurate facts, sometimes it’s to push a certain narrative.” Suddenly, some of the other student’s words catch up to him. “Why do you think I’m sneaking? Are  _ you _ sneaking?”

“Is this like, a regular thing for you, coming to the library this late? Have you done a lot of research about the Church?” the student asks, blatantly ignoring Linhardt’s question. He’s switched which palm he’s leaning his chin on so that he can tilt towards Linhardt. The yellow cape on his shoulder flops towards the flame of his meagre candle, but he doesn’t seem to notice.

“Every so often. And I’ve done a certain amount of research,” Linhardt says. This time he can tell the other student is waiting for him to elaborate, and he stills his tongue, obstinately.

“Ah. Church-y family?”

“I’m a von Hevring,” Linhardt says, because that should explain everything. Which makes it more interesting when the other student’s expression doesn’t smooth into any version of understanding - he just keeps watching Linhardt politely. “From the Empire,” Linhardt adds. “Adrestia’s relationship with the Church is rather complicated, at the moment, but explaining it to you would take too long and make me terribly drowsy, and I have reading to do.”

The other student gestures benevolently, thankfully swinging the cape back out of harm’s way. “Huh. Okay, well, I won’t stop you in the pursuit of knowledge. It was nice to meet you properly, I guess, Linhardt von Hevring. Even if it is in the library in the middle of the night.”

“Goodbye,” Linhardt says absently, already losing interest now he’s thinking about Saint Cethleann again. He steps forward past the student, stretching a foot over a muddy knee, and immediately kicks the candle over straight onto the pile of notes beside it.

“Shit,” says Linhardt, “ _ Fuck _ ,” and then he’s weaving the sigil for a wind spell with his hands before he’s really thinking about it. Wind spells, however, have both strength - enough to snuff the aspiring blaze at the edges of the student’s papers before it has graduated from errant flame - and duration. The wind blows, and keeps blowing: it sends the singed papers billowing up the sides of the shelves, rifles through book pages from contents to index, sends the slimmer tomes scooting across the floor into the darkness.

Linhardt and the student watch, silently, as wax-covered, black-edged papers zig-zag slowly to the floor.

“Well, that went badly,” says the student.

“ _ Shit _ ,” Linhardt says again. Then he says “why did you have a candle on the floor, this wouldn’t have happened if you’d been at a desk,” and then he says, “I can help you pick everything back up.”

“Nah, it’s okay,” the other student says. “I can—”

“No, I’m picking things up,” Linhardt demands, and sets his own lantern on the bookshelf beside him. He stacks a book about Goneril on top of one about the Oghma mountains determinedly, and after watching him for a brief moment the other student begins to quickly gather up the notepapers, pulling them into a haphazard pile and then tucking them inside one of the library books.

“I’ve ruined your candle, haven’t I?” Linhardt says. “Along with your notes.”

“Ah, don’t worry about it. Probably not my greatest scheme to bring a naked flame into a room full of books anyway.” The other student smoothes his palm in an anxious circle against the cover of the book he’s holding. “Well, uh. Running out of light is probably fate telling me to go to bed so I don’t sleep through sky patrol tomorrow, so…”

“What do you mean? There’s the lantern.”

“But that’s yours.”

“We’ll bring books back to my desk and share,” Linhardt explains, patiently. Obviously that’s what they’ll do. He’s not sure why the other student is confused.

“Oh,” the student says. “You sure?”

“I just set fire to your homework, I can stand to share a lantern with you.”

“Well, homework might be a stretch of a definition, at least in the sense that you’re meaning. But if you’re sure?”

“I wouldn’t offer if I didn’t want to.”

“Yeah, I’m getting that impression,” the other student says. “Alright then, I guess I can stick around for a while longer. Looks like I can still read, uh… most of my notes, anyway. Claude von Riegan.”

“Mmm?”

“My name is Claude von Riegan. Since it’s kinda becoming increasingly obvious that you’ve either forgotten it or didn’t know it in the first place.”

“Ah. I haven’t made a very good first impression, have I?” It’s just an observation. Linhardt rarely does make a good first impression, so he’s stopped trying to.

Claude snorts. “It’s okay. I’ve had worse introductions to people, honestly.”

“I don’t think I want to meet those people.”

“You really don’t,” Claude agrees. He rolls his shoulders a little, like he’s working out an ache. “Alright, then. Let’s dump this stuff and then I’ll come with you to Theology.”

“Why?”

“Well, it’s either that or sit here in the dark waiting for you. And that’s never been a strong point of mine.”

“Hmm. Alright then.”

The Theology section is updated with new works with gratifying regularity. The honourable deeds of Seiros and the benevolence of the Saints are a rather popular topic, both for authors to write and for churches and congregations to buy - a circular little sales market of the devout that does little to contribute new knowledge. The same little books using the same cheap woodcuts saying the same things over and over. But occasionally, something more in depth slips onto the shelves, something older or longer or just with smaller writing so it fits more in. There’s the same sort of satisfaction in finding one of those as there is in reeling in a fat, speckled Teutates pike from the fishing pond.

If Claude talks to him much after that, Linhardt doesn’t hear, because when the two of them get to the Theology section he finds a new slim volume from the 1400s about Saint Cethleann that contradicts a couple of points in the main tome he’d been basing his research on. Once he and Claude are back at the desk, the lantern placed between them, Linhardt scratches at his own paper with the green quill he’d stolen from his father’s office and in his reverie the other student becomes just another shifting shadow, as indistinct as the shapes cast on the shelves by the lantern glass.

When Linhardt looks back up, the sky beyond the window pane is bruising purple and there’s the beginning of a headache behind his eyes. It must not be long until the dawn bells; if he takes the long way back to his room and continues his good luck at avoiding Hubert’s prowling, Linhardt can sleep until after mid-morning prayers. Maybe until noon if Dorothea brings him his class notes.

He doesn’t remember Claude leaving, but when he looks up the space opposite him is empty, save for a torn scrap of paper with a smear of wax down one side. He picks it up.

_ Didn’t want to disturb you. Thanks for sharing the light. I won’t tell Seteth we almost burned down the library if you don’t. _

Linhardt scratches briefly at the wax with his thumbnail, flakes falling to the polished desk, and then crumples it in one hand and drops it into his pocket.

—

_ Blue Sea Moon _

He sees Claude around after that, from time to time: glimpses through the crack of an eye during lawn-sprawled naps, or through columns of pews during overlong cathedral services. Mostly with the pink-haired girl, or sometimes with the new teacher with the blank stare and the impossible, fascinating crest. Sometimes coming back from the missions the Archbishop sends the Golden Deer class on, that seem far more dangerous than any Manuela entrusts their Imperial cabal with. Ferdinand claims it is merely that the Academy is biding their time, preparing a task truly worthy of their superior abilities, but that’s Ferdinand for you. Luckily it’s easy for Linhardt to tune out anything Ferdinand is talking about and instead watch past his shoulder to where Claude and the teacher sit in the shade, a pot of tea between them.

The professor is a mystery of a person, who puts away food faster than even Caspar can inhale it and in far greater quantities, and navigates their way around the monastery at a remorseless dead run, woe betide anyone who might get in the way. It seems an exhausting way to live, but who knows what strange effects such a crest might have on a person?

An interesting point of consideration, now it has been brought to Linhardt's attention. Different crests have different properties, be it those that lend strength or those that rejuvenate. A difference in metabolism or muscle growth seems logical, but the only way to test it would be to physically examine a number of crest bearers, which seems both time consuming and generally a little awkward for everyone involved. Especially Linhardt.

Nonetheless, there may be previous studies from Hanneman’s collections in the library, or at least physical descriptions that he can draw patterns from.

He takes the option of merely waiting out Tomas from the back of the library this time, ignoring the turn of the lock from his spot behind the Classical Crestology shelves and retrieving his own lantern when darkness blooms at a click of the monk’s fingers. Lamentably these shelves are far more rarely updated than those in Theology, even with Hanneman’s influence. He supposes he could ask Hanneman directly about it, but Linhardt would rather walk straight into a giant wolf’s slathering maw than ask Hanneman for help with anything to do with Crestology.

So it’s a case of going back over some already well-thumbed texts with a new line of inquiry, and opening previously discounted ones in the hope they prove more useful than previously thought, and perhaps look back at his previous research on lineage—

“Linhardt?”

“I’m busy,” Linhardt says, automatically. The vague shape above the top of his book shifts, and then Linhardt remembers where he is and at what time, and looks up. “Oh, it’s you again.”

“Sure is,” Claude says. He’s got his own lantern this time, with the other arm hugging a stack of papers to his chest. There’s the red line of a recently faith-healed cut above his left eyebrow. “And this time it seems you’re the one blocking walkways.”

“There’s only more Crestology books back here,” Linhardt says, but Claude stands patiently, waiting, and it takes a moment for Linhardt to believe what his eyes are telling him. “Oh. You need Crestology books?”

“Well, I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t,” Claude says.

“You’re... researching crests?”

“There’s just some stuff I’ve been wondering about, I guess,” Claude says, shrugging. “Especially what with all this stuff with Teach—”

“ _ You’re researching crests _ ,” Linhardt says again, just to make sure.

“I wouldn’t say ‘researching’.” Claude’s grip on his note-filled papers tightens slightly as he speaks. “Like I said, I’m just wondering. Call it satisfying a curiosity.”

“What curiosity?” Linhardt asks, because he has to know, he has to. “What do you need to know? What are you wondering about?”

Claude stares at him for a moment, and then grins and shrugs, something shuttering behind his eyes. “You know what? It’s nothing. I’ll come back another time. Sorry for getting all up in your space. Try not to set fire to anything this time, huh?” He turns away, and he’s going to leave, and Linhardt is used to people walking away when he’s trying to talk about this sort of thing, but this is different.

“I know things about crests,” Linhardt hears himself blurt, and Claude’s steps pause. Linhardt keeps talking: “Not everything, not yet. But. I’ve been researching them for a few years now. I’ve read most of the books in this section at least once. Some of them I have copies of at home. I can tell you about crests.”

Claude stares at him again, except it’s not a closure this time. It’s like he’s weighing something up.

“Any time Professor Hanneman asks me about it I just talk about fishing,” Linhardt adds. “It’s  _ my _ research and it’s better than his. But you can have a look as long as you don’t damage or lose it.”

“Hey, there’s only one out of the two of us here who has committed homework arson. You have a very strange way of telling people you want to help, you know that?”

Linhardt shrugs. 

Another moment, and then Claude says: “How much can you tell me about the Heroes’ Relics?”

There it is, the shining silver hook. Linhardt wonders if Claude’s much of a fisher too. 

“Give me five minutes to go back to my room, and I’ll show you.”

Linhardt doesn’t bring all of his research back to the Library. That would be preposterous and far too much for his feeble mage arms to carry, especially as he prefers his feeble mage arms to carry absolutely nothing when at all possible. But he does waver back and forth in front of the pile for longer than five minutes: sliding out notebooks, thumbing through their pages and then either rejecting them with a sigh back to their resting place or, occasionally, adding them to his book bag. It makes a hefty thump against the desk Claude has set up at by the time he makes it back, pulling Claude’s eyebrows high towards his hairline.

“So,” Linhardt says, pulling out the chair next to Claude. “What did you want to know?”

Claude runs a thumb along the softened edge of one notebook, pages of Linhardt’s spidery scrawl dancing under his hand. “Woah. You weren’t kidding.”

“I tried to bring back a selection,” Linhardt says. “These ones are mostly about what we know about the Ten Elites. This big notebook is about the Relics in general. These two blue ones are about the gifts the crests bestow when wielding a Relic. These rolls of paper are about inheritance. And this pile is ‘miscellaneous’.”

“What’s in ‘miscellaneous’?”

“It’s all the things that I don’t understand yet. I’m working on it.”

“What do you mean?”

Linhardt hesitates, but there’s only the two of them in the dark, and these questions have been boiling in the back of Linhardt’s head for too long now with nobody to voice them to. “There’s just a few things that don’t quite make sense to me yet. About the properties of the Relics. About the origin of the Ten Elites. And about what happened to Miklan Gautier last week.”

Claude’s eyebrows raise again at this one, and Linhardt waves a dismissive hand. “I  _ might _ have overheard that old reheaded knight praying about it. He wasn’t being very quiet. And then maybe I eavesdropped on Lord Seteth in his office a little. Anyway, that’s not important. The fact that the transformation started at the Lance of Ruin means there’s still many things we don’t know about how the Relics work, but I have some theories.”

Claude stares, and then rifles through his own notes, and then holds up a sheet with a scribbled diagram of the Lance of Ruin. “Linhardt, I think I might have to kiss you.”

“Please don’t,” Linhardt says. “But tell me what you want to know.”

—

The next day, there’s a note slipped under Linhardt’s door while he’s skipping Professor Manuela’s poetry class.

_ Thanks again for the help. I have some notes about the von Riegan family tree, and our Relic, that I think you might find useful sometime. Perhaps we can talk again. _

Linhardt slips the note between two pages of his most recent notebook, so that he doesn’t forget.

—

_ Wyvern Moon _

They keep meeting. Sometimes planned, sometimes a chance overlap of their library visits that starts as a casual inquiry as to progress and ends up another session poring over notebooks and manuscripts. Outside of the library, they pass books between their rooms, left in piles on doorsteps with brief scribbled notes, or diagrams slipped through the gap to skid onto the rug. 

Linhardt learns the pink-haired girl’s name when she brings him a stack of copied notes, while huffing about how this was a favour for Claude and how she came all the way from the Knight’s Hall and now Hilda needs a sit down. In turn, Claude receives a book about the Red Canyon, recently sent to Garreg Mach from the impressive von Aegir family library. It’s stunningly easy for Linhardt to imply a true noble should know more about the local geography, and even easier to borrow a true noble’s source material a few days later when he’s gotten bored of reading it.

“Tell me more about how Crests get passed down,” Claude says. Dawn’s licking faintly at the edges of the windows this time, but they still have some time before the prayer bell. Enough to talk for a little while longer. “If two people have the same crest, how likely are they to be related?”

“Hard to say. Depends on the crest,” Linhardt says, trying not to let his words tumble out of his mouth too quickly. “The Blaiddyd crest has manifested in every heir to the Faerghus throne since Loog in a direct line from father to son. Presumably before that back to Blaiddyd, too, though the records are more patchy. Meanwhile, the crests of Indech and Lamine follow a matrilineal line.”

He pulls out a roll of paper and smooths it across the table - it’s a chicken-scratch assembly of a family inheritance timeline. This one in particular took him from his fourteenth birthday until past his fifteenth to even reach this threadbare state. Claude leans over it, already mouthing out names as he runs a finger down the stuttering, meandering line of Indech down to Bernadetta von Varley.

“More often, crests pass through either line but can sometimes skip a generation or two. Or three,” Linhardt continues. “Like your crest, and mine. So links between crest bearers in a family become more indistinct. As you probably already know, it can make noble families rather anxious when a crest doesn’t manifest in an heir, so there’s a lot of intermarrying with other crested families in the hopes that’ll increase the odds.”

“Sounds like it could get messy. Family-wise, I mean.”

“Mm. Especially within Adrestia. The von Hevrings have a recorded family tree these days in order to avoid any complications like that as best we can, and I dare say many of the other noble families have something similar. I believe Caspar and your Gloucester classmate are cousins somewhere along the line, for instance. Not that I can see any danger in that particular union coming to pass.”

Claude snorts. It’s endearingly undignified. “Ha! Maybe not, though there wouldn’t be any harm in Lorenz getting hitched to someone similar to Caspar. All the gods know that man needs his world view shaken up a bit.” 

Claude stretches, rolls a shoulder, flicks his eyes from side to side across the darkened shelves. He never seems to sit still for very long, Linhardt has noticed. Always some motion bubbling under the surface, even when he’s reading. Not like Caspar, who’s a perpetual engine, all fists and mouth - more like the energy that twitches over Thunderbrand whenever Linhardt gets too close without permission. “So what, you fall in love, decide to get married and then you have to go check the Big Book of Hevring to check you’re not accidentally related?” he says, once he’s settled.

“Well, that first part is a little optimistic, but let’s say yes for our own sakes.”

Claude’s brows draw together. “Really? Gotta say, Linhardt, you don’t seem the type to go along with an arranged marriage.”

“The current Duke Riegan is your grandfather, yes? Doesn’t he want you to marry a noble?”

Claude shrugs. “Maybe? The topic’s never come up. He’s… old. Pretty hands off as grandfathers go. He’s got enough on his plate with the Roundtable without worrying about who I marry or don’t marry. I think he’s just relieved I’m here to shore up our family’s position in Leicester before it’s too late. And my parents married for love, so... I like to think they’d want the same for me.” He folds his arms in front of himself on the desk, rests the side of his head on his sleeve, still looking at Linhardt. “I’m, uh, guessing that’s not the same for your parents?”

Linhardt picks at the corner of the roll of paper in front of him, works a nail between two layers so it frays. “If my parents had their way," he says, matter-of-factly, “I’d be marched up to the chapel to Saint Cethleann on our estate as soon as I turn of age, and married off to the first Adrestian noblewoman willing to tolerate me for the sake of the union. Then we’d have a few babies until one of them had a Crest, and then I’d become Minister of the Interior and fulfill my duties to House Hevring and the Empire. And then I’d eventually die.”

“Yeesh.”

“Yeesh indeed. Though actually, now I’m talking about it, maybe it would be less effort to go about it that way. Trying to find someone who would voluntarily put up with my idiosyncrasies seems like even more of a bother.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, it would be rather dreadful to be married to me, wouldn’t it?” Linhardt muses. “I’d be boring and self-absorbed and unhelpful.”

Claude’s just staring at him now, his head raised from his arms.

“What?”

“That’s a terrible thing to say about yourself, Linhardt.”

Linhardt makes a  _ pfft _ noise. “It’s just a description. I’m not asking you for pity, I’m just aware of my own personality flaws. Anyway, this subject is making me want to go to sleep and we’ve only a little longer before the dawn bell if we want to get anything else done. Tell me more about what you’ve noticed about the Professor’s crest.”

“Join our class,” Claude says suddenly.

“What?”

“Join the Golden Deer. Then you can see for yourself about Teach.”

Linhardt hums. “It would be a lot of trouble to switch classes halfway through the year.”

“Ashe and Felix have already joined us - uh, y’know, the freckled archer boy from Faerghus, and the angry one with all the swords. And Dorothea has been talking to Teach a little about it, too. C’mon, you know you’ll pass your Bishop certification wherever you end up. What’s the harm in joining us for a couple of months?”

“Dorothea hadn’t mentioned she was thinking of changing class.” Linhardt’s surprised, but then he and Dorothea haven’t really spoken since that peculiar blowout a week or two ago, and she’s always been one to play her cards close to her chest.

“It’s not definite yet, I don’t think. But if you both switched together, that might be fun! And she might not pick on me as much if you’re there.”

“I absolutely cannot imagine why you think that might be the case,” Linhardt says.

“You know what, that’s fair. But I still think you’d get a kick out of being in our class. A change of scenery might do you good.”

“I suppose it would be easier for us to compare notes being in the same classroom,” Linhardt muses.

“You say that like we won’t just end up here in the middle of the night again even if we did. Incorrigible, we are. Incorrigible and nocturnal.”

Linhardt suppresses the smile twitching at the corners of his mouth. “Maybe so.”

“So you’ll think about it?”

“I’ll think about it. No guarantees.”

—

Linhardt does think about it. There’s a few times, after the professor has jogged up to him with some possession or other they’ve picked up off the floor, that the words bubble up on his tongue. But it really would be such a bother. More bad first impressions to make. More people to disappoint and bore. And so he just sighs and shakes his head again at whatever the Professor has proffered to him, and then finds somewhere to have a nap instead.

Still, in the corner of a sheet ostensibly for his most recent faith essay, Linhardt finds himself writing three words, before tearing it away and shoving it into his desk drawer:

_ Incorrigible and nocturnal _ .


	2. Chapter 2

_Red Wolf Moon_

Linhardt waits.

Beside him sits a treatise specifically discussing crest stones and their position within the Heroes’ Relics, brimming with potential in its dog-eared pages. While heavily redacted, there’s something in the pattern of what has been omitted that begins to paint its own fragmented picture. Claude’s the more promising of the two of them at piecing these broken parts together, and there’s a curious thrill in watching him do so, even when overexcitement sets him chasing the end of Linhardt’s sentences before Linhardt can say them. And so, they’d agreed on meeting a little after midnight. Yet, as it creeps round to half past the hour, Linhardt is still alone. 

Eventually, as Linhardt is thumbing through a text he’s read a dozen times distractedly, the smell of dish soap and wet rags curls in his nose. He looks up, and the source of the smell waves.

“Ugh, sorry, what time is it? I tried to get here as quickly as I could.”

“You’re damp,” Linhardt points out. “And late.”

“Astute observations from one of Garreg Mach’s brightest stars,” Claude says with a grin, but then shrugs apologetically. “I got caught up helping in the kitchen. I have never seen a bigger pile of plates to clean in my life and the student who was supposed to do it was sick today, so I offered.”

Linhardt is aghast. “You’ve been washing dishes until after midnight?”

Claude holds up his hands. “Check out how pruny my hands are.”

Along with the wrinkles on his palms and fingers, there’s bandages on his left index finger and pinky, and on his right thumb. “Did you hurt yourself, as well?”

“Oh! Uh, yeah, but that’s just from a glass I dropped. It’s fine, they’re not deep, they just bled a lot. I dropped a bunch of plates too, so it could have ended up a lot worse—”

“Oh, for the sake of the goddess, give them here,” Linhardt says. He pats the seat next to him a couple of times, and then holds out a hand.

Claude stares at him for a second and then understanding blooms on his face. “You don’t need to heal them, Linhardt, they’re nothing.”

“I’m right here and offering,” Linhardt says, patting the chair again, and after a moment Claude sits and holds out both of his own hands. Linhardt takes the left one first.

“Have they stopped bleeding?”

“I think so.”

“Good,” Linhardt says, and unwraps the bandages. Claude is correct that the cuts are shallow, if rather unsightly, and they don’t demand a lot of Linhardt’s magic to seal shut. When he casts, a barely perceptible chill runs from Linhardt’s chest down to his fingers, raising all the hairs on his own arm and making Claude’s hand faintly twitch in his own. When Linhardt takes Claude’s right hand to inspect the cut on his thumb he can’t help but frown faintly at its proximity to the tendon. It too closes quickly, though, with nothing more than a faint red line to show where it had been.

“There,” Linhardt says briskly, pulling out the treatise. “Now we don’t need to waste any more time. Really now, you’re hardly the one who should be tending to dishes until past midnight.”

Claude rolls his eyes. “If this is about nobles and bloodlines, I already had this talk with Leonie. Like I said to her: being noble or common doesn’t have anything to do with washing dishes.”

“Oh, you know I don’t care about nobility,” Linhardt says. “It’s about you smashing crockery, soaking yourself with water and bleeding all over the kitchen sink, presumably.”

“Well, who else was going to do it?” Claude says, and Linhardt feels a twinge of irritation that he needs to explain this. He puts the book aside.

“Someone better at cleaning dishes. If you had said no to the kitchen staff, I’m sure they would have found someone else better suited. And those plates wouldn’t be smashed, and you wouldn’t have gotten hurt.”

“Hey now, I’m not quite sure why you’re scolding me for helping out,” Claude says. “They needed someone, I offered, everything was peachy in the end. Just a few bumps along the way.”

“I’m hardly scolding you, I’m just telling you,” Linhardt says. Perhaps he hasn’t explained it clearly enough yet. “Everyone has different strengths,” he tries. “If the end result is going to be difficult and terrible for everyone involved, better not start it at all and leave it for someone better suited. That’s why I spend my time researching Crests and not, I don’t know, chopping firewood badly and getting terrible blisters.”

Claude’s looking at him with an expression Linhardt can’t quite parse. “Or was it congratulations that you wanted instead?” he tries. “Can’t say I’m inclined to congratulate you for your injury.”

“Of course I don’t want congratulations. That’s not why people help other people,” Claude says, and… ah. Linhardt has disappointed him, he can tell. He can feel the chill run through them both, as barely tangible as the current of magic needed to seal Claude’s wounds.

“All I’m saying is that it’s effort better expended—”

“You know what?” Claude says, and there he goes, doing that thing where his mouth curves upwards but nothing else changes. “I’m pretty wiped out, and like you said, I’m damp as a dishrag. The last thing I need is to catch a chill in this draughty old library. Soooo, how about we reschedule? Is that okay?”

It’s not that cold in the library. “I’ve upset you,” Linhardt says.

Claude’s smile stays perfectly intact. “Don’t worry your ribboned head about it. I’m just tired. There’s a lot going on. Let’s try again another time, yeah?”

“Alright, then. Another time,” Linhardt says.

Claude stands, and maybe there’s something else Linhardt could say that would get him to sit back down. But whatever causes his words to spill from his mouth about the properties of Crest of Fraldarius, or the contradictions in the later teachings of Saint Seiros, now finds his mouth dry and empty.

So Claude leaves, and Linhardt pulls another book from his pile, and reads, and keeps reading until he’s forgotten about the faint twitch of Claude’s fingers, and his shuttered smile.

—

At the end of the month, Linhardt waits.

He has plenty of other things he could be doing. Sleeping. Practicing his warp spell, only recently cast successfully and still unstable enough that he’s only used it on himself so far. Attempting to break into the Holy Tomb again, now the dust has settled a little on the last time he tried and the Knights of Seiros have stopped watching him with an eagle eye every time he goes near the cathedral. Even still within the confines of the Library, there is more to be done on his research of Saint Macuil’s early life.

Instead of doing any of those things Linhardt is laid on his back on one of the desks, his legs swinging restlessly where they hang off the edge, staring into the gloom of the high ceiling, and he is waiting.

The Golden Deer have been gone for two days and the only news filtering out of Remire is of blood and fire and destruction.

Linhardt waits, and stares, and kicks, and counts the seconds under his breath, and waits, until the dawn bells chime and the muscles in his back shriek complaint and he sort of wants to shriek himself, if that didn’t sound like a lot of effort. And still alone, he returns to his room.

He’s visited Remire before, balanced as it is on the cusp of Hevring and Arundel. It had only been a brief stop on the way to the Academy to rest the horses. Linhardt hadn’t even gotten out of the carriage, drowsy and unwilling to let what little heat there was escape out the doors. He’d merely given it a disinterested glance out of the window: a cluster of houses in the rain, a cobbled square, another chapel to St Cethleann, far more humble than that on the Hevring estate. A place of little consequence compared to the opportunities that awaited him at the time. A place that briefly entered his realm of experience before sliding away again with the turn of a set of carriage wheels, in the time before he learned how to kill someone.

What even was left of it now? He hated the question. Hated thinking about the answer. Hated the blood on the ground there even if it wasn’t under his nose to make him woozy.

Linhardt lets out a long breath, and then goes to his bookshelf and starts to rummage. He knows what he is looking for is here somewhere, but he still ends up pulling half a shelf away before he alights upon it: a slim volume of Albinean hedge magic he’d ordered while he was still back in Hevring. They’re undemanding little charms. Anyone with theoretical magic knowledge and a measure of critical thinking should be able do them, even if they’re not a practiced mage.

At his desk, he finds the one he’s looking for, rips a page from his notebook and transcribes the directions. Slips it into the inside cover of the treatise on crest stones. Touches two fingers to the lot, and draws the warp sigil like he’s been practicing. Watches magic catch the edges of the paper and melt it away.

And then he goes back to bed.

He isn’t sure how much time has passed when he wakes, but it’s with a tight-chested, heart-thumping jolt at the sound of paper scraping across the stone. But when Linhardt scrambles out of bed he doesn’t reach for the folded square. Instead, he wrenches the door open, the last of the palpitations dulling under his ribs, but out in the courtyard there’s only the handsome red-headed one, talking to a girl.

“Was Claude von Riegan out here just now?” he asks the courtyard, hoping someone will respond. The redhead blinks, the rhythm of his words stuttering to a halt.

“Oh, uh, yeah. I think he just went back upstairs to his room, though. Hey, are you—?”

“Was he. Did—” Linhardt hesitates, and then shakes his head. “Never mind. Goodbye.”

He slams the door shut again before the redhead can say anything else, and then opens the note.

_An interesting little bundle. As far as I can tell the sigil is a healing spell but for clay and glass, not flesh… a dish repairing spell?_

_Give me a day or two. I’ll come find you in the library and you can tell me all about it._

  
—

Ethereal Moon

Parties are fine as long as no-one expects Linhardt to participate beyond turning up, or tries to stop him leaving. The reception hall usually has a chill running through it but tonight it is warm with the crowd of students and staff; it smells of citrus and cinnamon and snuffed candles, candles lit in every alcove. Some of the Adrestian waltzes are familiar to Linhardt even if there’s no rhythm in his own frame. He hums the melodies he recognises under his breath while sat at a table with his chin in his hand, waving off the occasional invitation from Caspar or Ferdinand to join the rest of them. Sometimes, he watches the string quartet, follows the movements of their hands alongside the music. There’s something dreadfully satisfying in the knowledge that what he hears is a direct result of that motion.

By the time the band switches to Faerghan ceilidh music, the windows are fogged with exertion and the echo of dozens of feet slamming against the stone floor is almost as loud as the music itself. Dorothea, newly inducted into the Golden Deer, shriek-laughs when Hilda and the big blond brawler take turns to lock elbows and swing her around the floor at unnerving velocity. On the other side of the floor even Hubert has been pulled into the throng, green with outrage as he finds himself joining hands with Ferdinand on a switch of partners. It reminds Linhardt of those painted wheels he often found in the toy shop in Hevring township, that when spun show a spiral of dancing figures.

All in all, it’s getting far too exhausting even to watch, and Linhardt has plans before the night is through. Time to leave.

Overheated as the hall had been, it takes a while for the winter air outside to start to bite at Linhardt’s edges. He takes the long way around to his destination: drifting along pathways festooned with lanterns and garlands and threaded dried citrus, and winding through narrow passageways banked up with snow. The stars above are as mysterious and impassive as ever, distant questions that Linhardt has never read an answer to that he’s satisfied with. Maybe that’s why he likes them so much. He’s always had an affinity for the difficult to understand.

But tonight is for the usual mysteries. As it is, with all the staff occupied with making sure the students make room for Seiros during the slow dances, Linhardt is not only without risk of unexpected corridor patrols, he might be able to try getting into the now-abandoned Head Librarian’s office. Surely anything incriminating about Tomas’ evil secret identity had been purged from it already so Linhardt could be left with the good stuff. He might as well make a night of it.

Of course, as soon he reaches the door and finds it unlocked again, he realises who has had the same idea. A dark shape outlined in lantern light, sat on the floor outside Tomas’ office. And as ever, the shape is already looking Linhardt’s way.

“So you’re here for the same reason I am,” Linhardt calls across the space. Claude waves him over.

“Well, that and for an excuse to leave the ball,” he says as Linhardt approaches. “I think Seteth’s put some kind of magical seal on this door, none of my usual methods are making a dent. Wanna take a look?”

“Give me some room,” Linhardt says, and Claude shuffles over so Linhardt can kneel beside him. With a whisper of magic from Linhardt’s fingertips, a series of sigils illuminate on the surface of the door, numerous and overlapping. Linhardt groans at the sight of it.

“Ugh, I’ve seen one like this before and it was utterly dreadful. But I’ll give it a try.” Linhardt shifts, tries to untangle one of the spells piece by piece. As he works, he adds: “The last I saw of you, you looked like you were having a grand old time dancing with the Professor.”

“Eh, I just wanted to take the wind out of Dimitri and Edelgard’s sails for a moment. I was kinda done after that. The music was fun, but I never really learned of all those noble dances.”

“Really? I can’t say you’re missing out particularly, but I’m still surprised.” Linhardt says. The spell wavers under his hands briefly but then snaps back into place with a crackle of static that has Linhardt hissing. _“Shit.”_

“Ouch, that looked nasty. I bet you had someone teach you how to dance and which forks to use for pudding and all that stuff, right?”

Linhardt nods. “It was dreadful,” he adds, trying again with the seal. “The finishing classes, I mean. The magical shock was just surprising.”

Claude laughs a little. “Well, I never had any of that stuff. I don’t know my pudding forks from my polkas. And big crowds like that can make me a little nervous sometimes.” He grins suddenly. “So, no sneaking off to the Goddess Tower with anyone tonight?”

Linhardt hums noncommittally. “I do enjoy a good legend of a curse, but I don’t feel the need to reenact it myself.”

“Wait, a curse?”

Linhardt briefly looks at Claude. “That’s what it is, yes? Two people make a vow and then they’re bound together forever by a curse. Shit,” Linhardt adds again, when the spell snaps back and shocks his fingers again.

“Huh. The one I’ve heard is that if a man and a woman pray for the same thing at the Goddess Tower tonight, the goddess will grant their wish. Maybe it’s an Adrestia versus Leicester thing?”

“Oh. Hmm. Well, that doesn’t sound nearly as good.”

Claude’s eyebrows raise. “You want to be bound together forever by a curse with someone?”

Linhardt pulls back from the door for a moment. He can feel the unpleasant static tingle of rejected magic at the tips of his fingers and in his scalp, and the door is no closer to opening. “Well, obviously it’s just a legend either way,” he replies to Claude. “So as legends go, I think mine sounds rather more romantic than just wish granting. Don’t you?”

“Eh, I dunno. I feel like I could use all the chances for my wishes to come true that I can get.” Claude unfolds his legs in front of him, leans back on his hands, arches his back to stretch a little. There’s a golden lace threaded into his hair braid tonight, which catches the lantern light when his head tilts.

“Well, you’ve still got time to find someone willing to accompany you if you want to give it a try.”

Claude laughs. “Maybe. But the tower is so far away from here, in the cold and snow, and I might miss finding out what’s in Tomas’ office. Hey, we could just do it here, though.”

“Here?”

“Sure. It’s just a legend, like you say, so location probably doesn’t matter too much. What do you wish for, Linhardt? What do you want out of life? Other than for your parents not to marry you off as soon as you go home, I mean, which is still a pretty valid wish to make.”

Linhardt shakes the last of the tingles from his fingertips and abandons the seal for now. Sat on his heels facing the door, his shoulders are aligned with Claude’s. “I hope we’re not talking ambition here.”

“Not if you don’t want to. Which I’m guessing you don’t.”

“No,” Linhardt agrees, and then thinks for a moment. “I suppose… what I want is what we’ve been doing, really.”

“Oh?”Claude’s eyebrow twitches faintly in surprise, which surprises Linhardt in turn. It shouldn’t be hard to tell what Linhardt’s priorities are by now, but he explains anyway.

“Time unbothered by others, to research what we find is interesting. Reading books. Exploring. Solving a puzzle or two. Living unburdened by other’s expectations. Though a nice spot to nap afterwards and maybe somewhere to fish wouldn’t go astray, either.”

Claude’s watching him carefully. “Did I say something wrong again?”

Claude smiles a little, and it’s not the shuttered expression from last month. There’s warmth to it. It’s rather pleasant to see. “Nah. It’s just... There’s not much in that I don’t like the sound of either. There’s probably just a few more things I have to wish for first before I can get to that part.”

“Why not just wish for it anyway? If you’re going through with this charade at all. If it’s part of the end goal, maybe the other things will be part of it too. Whatever they may be.”

“Maybe you’re right. Okay, then, better make it quick before the goddess gets distracted.” 

Claude leaps to his feet, all agile muscle like he perhaps does attend training now and then rather than sleep through his commitments, and reaches out a hand to Linhardt.

“Really?” Linhardt says.

“Yeah. Gotta do it properly, or what’s the point?”

“Ugh, fine. But you have to pull me.” 

Linhardt holds his arm out and lets Claude tug him upright, and once they’re steady Claude’s voice shifts into the pompous drone of a monk leading evening prayers: “Oh, divine goddess, hear our humble requests to your holy radiance! Give us that which we seek, namely: some fun times and nice naps. Thanks, lots of love from Claude and Linhardt.”

“That was a terrible prayer.”

“Eh, just another thing I never learned to do properly. Maybe the Goddess will enjoy the variety.”

“You’re a very strange noble, Claude von Riegan.”

“That’s mighty rich coming from you, Linhardt von Hevring.”

The meagre lantern is a liar. It pretends as if the boundaries of this vast space end where the light dies and the darkness rises. Within that cramped illusion, the two of them are standing face to face, and Claude has never quite got around to letting go of Linhardt’s wrist, a firm, unfamiliar warmth that surrounds his pulse point. And as they are caught in this moment, Linhardt has two thoughts. 

The first is: if a man and a woman are face to face, beseeching the goddess to grant them a boon, which has Linhardt’s voice? Which mouth does his prayer fall out of? Is it either? Both? Neither?

The second is: while it would be terribly cliché, he wouldn’t mind so much if Claude von Riegan kissed him on the night of the Winter Ball.

And then Claude says, “You know, it’s not too late to join the Golden Deer. Honestly, we could use the help right now.”

Linhardt laughs, a genuine sound from the belly, and pulls his hand away. “I think the moment has passed,” he says, and then kneels down to pick away at the spells on the door again.

“You really think that? What with everything that happened last month, who knows what the rest of the year could be like. It might be… safer, with us. With the Professor.”

“You sound like you have suspicions.”

Claude’s still standing up, and he runs a hand through his hair awkwardly, shifting as he looks down at Linhardt. “I’m just worried, is all,” he says, finally.

“About me? That’s rather sweet, but unnecessary.”

“About everyone. And so, yes, you. You can’t exactly say the monastery is the safest place to be right now, can you?”

Linhardt sighs. Another hook, so close to catching, but: “Let’s not talk about it tonight, eh?”

“Really?” The reply is a little exasperated, Linhardt can tell.

“I was having a nice evening, and I don’t want it to stop being nice. Ask me again tomorrow, perhaps.”

“Things won’t be any different tomorrow.”

“You never know,” Linhardt says, and then “ _Fuck,_ ” as static snaps sparks across his fingers again, even more vicious than before.

After a moment Claude kneels to join him, uncharacteristically quiet. The skin on Linhardt’s wrist feels cool in the dusty air.

—

_Pegasus Moon_

The last note Linhardt leaves Claude is hastily scribbled and warped to his room after packing two trunks and leaving them for the Hevring footman to take to the carriage:

_Find me in the Crestology section before one of the clock. I won’t be able to delay any longer than that._

Claude makes it to the library by quarter to one, and Linhardt watches him take in the heavy green coat, the book bag slung across his shoulders.

“You’re leaving, then,” Claude says.

Linhardt shrugs, almost imperceptibly. “Staying would only cause more trouble, in the short term. A battalion sent to bring me home, or some such nonsense. That’d just be embarrassing for everyone involved.” He imagines it now, some gaggle of burly Imperial youths carrying his sleeping body to Enbarr like pallbearers. Maybe Caspar would take on the job. When he’d said goodbye to Linhardt a day or two ago, it had been a _see ya, Lin!_ Like he knew they’d meet again. Maybe, Linhardt thinks with an dull ache, he knows something Linhardt doesn’t.

“But do you want to?” Claude’s asking him.

“Have a battalion bring me home? Of course not.”

“ _Do you want to go back to the Empire,_ ” Claude says, more insistently.

Linhardt puffs a breath out of his mouth to nudge a stray strand of hair away from his lips. “Well, I can’t say I’m enthused. But what other option is there, really.”

“If you go back, what happens?”

“I return to Hevring. Take up my place as the heir to the household and re-acquaint myself with proper deportment, or whatever nonsense my father will use to mean ‘make sure you don’t embarrass me’. Catch up on some sleep. Marriage is probably off the table until the Empire is more stable, which is one small mercy out of all of this.”

“Edelgard wouldn’t send for you?” Her name cuts through the air like her own axe through a body, but Linhardt pushes on.

“Oh please. It’s not like I’m essential, or even particularly required. Healers are ten a penny and my Crest research has no place in whatever new world order Edelgard wants to carve out, so I’m in no danger from her. Honestly, it’s far less of a bother for you if you just leave me to it.”

Claude’s face crumples a little. “You can’t just give up.”

“It’s not giving up if it’s the only reasonable option.”

“The Church would—” Claude starts, but even he falters at this. After everything the two of them have witnessed this year, Linhardt can see _the Church would protect you_ dying on his lips. “We could take you to Derdriu,” he says, instead. “Or Goneril, to the Locket. Ask the Duke to give you some sort of protection—“

“Abducting the—” not son, not son, “—child of an Imperial minister on the eve of war doesn’t suggest much in the way of neutrality,” Linhardt says. Because he knows that is how Count Hevring will see it, because this is how Count Hevring sees everything. His or theirs. With or against. Success or disappointment. “And I don’t imagine your grandfather would take kindly to an errant deserter bringing the wrath of the Empire upon the Alliance’s head. Even I can see that and I don’t know anything about how to fight a war.”

Claude drums his fingers against his chin, restless and electric as ever. “If we think about it for a bit,” he says, “sit down and make a plan, then I’m sure we can work something out. There must be favours we can pull. Ways to cover your tracks, so the Alliance isn’t implicated—”

“Claude,” Linhardt says, firmly. “You already know this makes the most sense for both of us. The Empire is marching to war and you’re the heir to the sovereign Duke of the Alliance. You’re going to have a lot more to worry about than some lazy noble sitting around at home.”

“That doesn’t make you unimportant.”

“Comparatively, it sort of does.”

Claude makes a frustrated noise. “You are infuriating sometimes, you know that?”

“I get told that almost every day, actually. By now I’m rather good at tuning it out.”

“But why do you do that? Why give up on everything before you even try?”

Linhardt scoffs. “That’s an unfair assumption. It’s about—”

“Yeah yeah, effort expended, no point doing trying something if you’re not good at it, or whatever. You know, Linhardt, you’ve spent all year avoiding doing things that might not work out for you. Why? Is it because you’re lazy, or is it because you think it’s easier to stick to what you know than to risk having to rely on somebody to help you?”

Linhardt lurches back a little, the words like a slap, but Claude keeps talking: “Do you really wanna go back to that house you hate, that family that wants to marry you off, the life you don’t care about? Just because the alternative sounds like too much bother?”

Linhardt isn’t used to feeling angry. It’s rather novel. “Does it even matter? Do you really want to prove me wrong so badly? This isn’t glass cuts on your hands anymore. This is people’s lives.”

“You don’t know that it would—”

“What I know, Claude, is that there are things bigger than myself that I cannot attempt, which might be something to consider—”

“No,” Claude says, and he’s angry too: he steps forward into Linhardt’s space, as close as he’d been during the Winter Ball, that silly wish which seems to have been soundly ignored by the goddess. “I’ve been told again and again that things are just the way they are and can’t change and I should just give up. I never believed it before and I’m not about to start believing it now. And you of all people, someone who doesn’t give a damn what other people think of you, should be clever and brilliant and powerful enough to realise that!”

Right now Claude is righteous fire like burning paper in the wind, and Linhardt doesn’t know what to say.

What comes out of his mouth is: “Claude, can I kiss you?”

Claude stops talking, and stares at Linhardt, and then makes some kind of faintly strangled noise. And then he says: “What?”

Linhardt takes another step forward, tilts his face towards Claude’s own, lets more words fall out: “I think I’d like to kiss you. Can I kiss you?”

“Uh,” Claude says, and though Linhardt hadn’t speculated much on what reaction Claude would give to such a question, he certainly hadn’t anticipated utter bafflement. Though it is rather endearing in its own way. 

But then, Claude closes more of the gap between them and his eyes fall shut, and maybe there’s some kind of nod in there because his nose bumps gently against Linhardt’s cheek. And so Linhardt kisses him.

Kissing turns out to be different than Linhardt expects. At first, Claude’s mouth is sort of damp, immobile and confused against Linhardt’s own, his hands carving out shapes in the air at Linhardt’s sides. But then they cycle to a stop, coming to hover somewhere around the region of Linhardt’s elbows, and Claude’s lips push forward against Linhardt’s lips once, twice, more, and Linhardt moves his own to match, and, huh. Still different than he thought. Better different, though. Especially when Claude tilts his head a little so that their noses aren’t quite so close, and Linhardt gets the faintest taste of pine needle tea between his closed lips.

He pulls back, and Claude looks sort of shell-shocked, which is charming enough for Linhardt to kiss him one more time before he pulls away entirely. Then the two of them stand there. After all that, Linhardt still doesn’t know what to say. Perhaps now even more so, in fact.

“It won’t be forever,” he volunteers, eventually. “Things change. Wars end. Presumably, anyway. You never know, we might even fail to die.”

“So that was still a goodbye,” Claude says, and his voice is faint. As if his anger has been extinguished by Linhardt’s lips.

“Maybe a ‘see you later’,” Linhardt says lightly, even if he doesn’t really feel very light. He glances at the clock. “And now I have to go. Thank you for the kisses, though.”

“Linhardt. I. Think about joining the Golden Deer,” Claude says. One of his floating hands finally settles on Linhardt’s elbow. “I know you’re leaving, but… think about it.”

“I will,” Linhardt lies, and leans forward for one more brief touch of lips. And then, gently disentangling himself from Claude’s grasp, he leaves for the waiting carriage.

—

_Ethereal Moon, 1185_

The library in the Hevring estate still smells of disappointment. Perhaps it always has been, and always will, Linhardt thinks, as he lies sprawled on his back in the middle of the wooden floor with a melting bowl of peach sorbet on one side of him and a pile of books on the other.

With Count Hevring and his wife assisting the Emperor in Enbarr, Linhardt has the run of the estate. Were his steps around the house perceivable after his passage, they would wear thick lines into the floor between his bedroom and the library, the library and the garden, the garden and the pond, the pond and his bedroom. In the winter he settles by a fire and gluts himself on all the books the Count had kept from him previously, found stashed in basements or filing cabinets. In the summer he lies under the willow tree and watches its slender limbs dance in the wind before his eyes fall blissfully shut. The meagre payment for his freedom is a monthly letter to Enbarr to reassure the Count that his legacy has not been cut short in a tragic accident. Linhardt has never wanted for particularly much and, for five years, he has had it all.

His crest research has progressed at a slower pace since fleeing the Academy, he will concede, but that is only to be expected. Correspondence beyond Adrestian borders has become patchy and unreliable. The academic selection at Hevring is becoming rapidly stale out of date. And, well. 

Linhardt’s never been one to tire of solitude, but perhaps he had gotten somewhat accustomed to sharing his discoveries with an interested audience. Perhaps there had been a valuable resource in the perspective of another clever mind, someone to bat ideas back and forth across a lantern-lit library desk. Perhaps.

And perhaps the bare skeleton staff who kept the place running should have been a little more suspicious of the smartly dressed courier who arrived one day, insisting that their message needed to be delivered directly from their own hands into Lord Linhardt’s. But the eternally bored stablehand had leapt for a chance to take their horse, and the ageing butler had appreciated a chance to talk to someone new, especially with such a charming laugh. And on his part, Linhardt hadn’t really been listening when the announcement had been made at the threshold of the library door, merely waved an arm vaguely from the table he’s sitting at.

So all in all it’s rather surprising when the courier takes off their hat, shakes down their hair and says “Well, it sure has been a while, hasn’t it, Lin?”

“Dorothea?”

She laughs and strides over, sweeping Linhardt in a hug that he doesn’t have time to prepare for but can’t find it in himself to resent. He pats her elbows in what he hopes is a friendly way until she pulls back.

“Look at you, Lin! No more baby face.”

“I’m glad you’re well, Dorothea. Where in the world have you been? Everything was… rather a mess, near the end.”

Dorothea sighs and settles into the chair opposite him, untying the knot on her thick wool cloak and letting it fall from her shoulders. She looks tired. “Wow, that could be a long story if we let it. Well… after we lost Garreg Mach, I went back to the capital to help Mittelfrank for a while. There are people there who I owe a lot to, so I wanted to make sure they were safe. But I couldn’t stay, not once Edie and Hubie started bringing in so many more troops to the city.”

“Mm.” It’s rather odd, hearing their names from Dorothea. Hearing what they’ve done. Everything that has happened, all the movements of the Empire have seemed so distant, as if Linhardt is watching it all through a pane of glass. Even the death. Especially the death, in some ways.

Dorothea is still talking. “I guess I’ve just been drifting across Fódlan since, trying to help where I can - the Empire, the Alliance, some of Faerghus where the fighting isn’t too bad. Even went to Brigid for a little while. Got into a little bit of trouble, sometimes, but got myself out of it again. Everything north of here into Arundel is a _mess_ , but… I’m glad you’re safe.” 

“I’m glad you’re safe too,” he says, and means it wholeheartedly. 

Her face drops in regret. “One of the last times we spoke properly was a silly argument, wasn’t it?”

Linhardt frowns. “Was it?”

“Oh, you’re a dear for acting like you don’t remember. I let some silly gossip about my past get to me, I think, and I snapped at you.”

“Well, no need to drag that all up now,” Linhardt says, who absolutely cannot remember. “The past is done and easy to forget. Just like I already have.”

Dorothea laughs a little. “I’m not sure I agree, but you’re right that these sorts of things seem kinda inconsequential, now, don’t they?” 

“You can stay as long as you like, you know. There are seven empty bedrooms. Even if someone came looking for you I probably wouldn’t remember you were here.”

She laughs and the sound cuts like glass through the sluggish, dusty air. “That’s darling of you to offer, Lin, but I can’t stay. I’m just… here to tell you something, because I want you to know, and because I trust you not to let the information fall into the wrong hands.”

“Oh?”

She takes a breath, and then says: “You remember the Winter Ball back at the Academy, right? I know this sounds a little silly, especially now I’m saying it out loud, but… that night, Claude got us all to make a promise.”

—

There’s no reason for Linhardt to go, he tells himself, after he watches Dorothea ride away, her saddlebags heavy with food from the von Hevring larders and a silver candlestick set Linhardt’s sure his parents won’t miss. Linhardt was never a Golden Deer, never made a promise. He can stay right where he is, doing something he is very good at, for as long as he wishes.

Everyone has different strengths. His are right here. Why risk it all somewhere else if others can do it better? 

Why cut your hands to wash a hundred dishes? Why offer to help someone even when it might be your downfall?

Linhardt drums his fingers against his book, and then, out loud to the empty library, he says: “Ah, fuck.”

—

This had seemed like a good idea in theory, Claude thinks, but wow. This place is a dump right now. What the bandits haven’t stripped from any building they could pry their way into, vermin and decay have left crumbling. It’s salvageable, sure, but it’s going to take so much work even with the help of the Church that Hilda is complaining pre-emptively and Raphael is saying a lot of things about how his muscles are going to need a pretty big meal tonight. Luckily, Leonie, Petra and Ashe have volunteered for food gathering duty, and the three of them are resourceful enough to find as much as the group needs.

The internal rooms of the main monastery building are the ones with the least damage, and it’s a miracle to Claude that the library seems to still have most of its books - perhaps the bandits weren’t big readers. Whatever it is, Claude gives thanks for small blessings - it’s as good a place as any to start working out a duty schedule.

As soon as he sits down in front of paper, a wave of fatigue washes over him, which is about standard for any time he gets a chance to sit down these days. Luckily, he’s gotten rather good at ignoring it over with a mix of sheer determination and Almyran-style coffee.

It’s fine. He can do this. Teach is back - impossibly, unbelievably, even if they’re currently running laps around the ruined cathedral to ‘help them think’ - and what’s leading his beloved classmates in comparison to spending five years trying to stop a country imploding? It’s fine.

“It’s fine,” he says, out loud, just to hear it, and then almost spills his coffee across the table when a voice behind him replies “What is?”

“Land sakes alive, Linhardt, I almost had a heart attack,” he says, and then his words catch up to his brain, and he wheels around. 

“Really? Interesting. Any time I ever found you in here before, you always saw me coming,” Linhardt says, and walks past Claude to set his book bag down on the desk, leaving Claude just helplessly tracking his motion.

“Yeah, well. I’ve got a bit more going on these days. More irons in the fire,” Claude says, because it’s the only thing he can think to say. “You’re here,” he adds, eventually. 

“Astounding observation from Garreg Mach’s brightest star,” Linhardt says, sitting down in the chair opposite Claude. “Dorothea paid me a visit last week. Told me about your reunion plans.”

Claude can't fight the smile that breaks onto his face at this one. “Oh?”

“Mm.” Linhardt looks at him for a moment, and then looks away and clears his throat, declaring loudly, “I don't like the sight of blood. I can’t lift rubble. Or clean. Or chop wood, but you knew that one already. Oh and I don’t know how to cook.” He pauses again briefly, and then says, “I can catch fish, though. There are probably other things. We can find out as we go along.”

“That’s fine. We need all the help we can get right now,” Claude says, and despite the fatigue, despite the war, despite everything weighed against them - he feels something like the warmth of lantern light in his chest. “Linhardt?”

“Mmm?”

“Welcome to the Golden Deer.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Tama and Vellev for all their encouragement and kind words!
> 
> I'm on twitter at @hausofthestars.


End file.
